The wreckage of a Montana plane crash is found using a victim's smart watch location

WEST YELLOWSTONE, Mont. — Search teams located the site of an airplane crash that killed three people near Yellowstone National Park using the last known location of the smart watch from one of the victims, authorities said Monday.

The single-engine Piper PA-28 aircraft left Montana's West Yellowstone Airport just before midnight on Thursday, according to Federal Aviation Administration records released Monday.

When the aircraft could not be located, two search planes were dispatched to look for it in the vicinity of the last known location of the watch, the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office said.

The search planes found the downed aircraft about a half-hour later in dense timber just south of the town of West Yellowstone. All three occupants were deceased.

The victims were identified by the sheriff’s office as Robert Conover, 60, of Tennessee; Madison Conover, 23, also of Tennessee; and Kurt Enoch Robey, 55, of Utah.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. It was under investigation by the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board.